Jack off

In addition to illegally buying influence and favor with members of Congress, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff also sought to catch a deal on buying a limo with the help of America's asset forfeiture drug laws.

On Aug. 21, 2002, he sent an e-mail to his friend David H. Safavian, chief of staff at the General Services Administration. "I have a need to buy a stretch limo for the restaurant," Abramoff wrote, referring to Signatures, the downtown establishment he owned. "Are there any coming up on any of the GSA drug property sales?"

Safavian, according to the documents recently filed by Justice Department prosecutors at U.S. District Court, wrote back that the GSA does not auction off seized cars. But he added that he was ready to help: "Let me call a friend at the Marshall's Service. They handle drug seizures."

Abramoff replied: "I was thinking of the druggies bounty. No problem. Thanks, see you Friday."

While the courts have said that law enforcement agencies are completely within the realm of the law when they steal property from Americans just because they are charged with (but not necessarily convicted of) drug offenses, the practice should be just as illegal as bribing legislators.

Check out Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR) for more info.

7 1/2 years in jail for marijuana

From the AP:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A judge changed a sentence from six months in prison to eight years after a teenager convicted in a drive-by shooting wrote a letter asking a friend to take over his marijuana dealings.

Aaron K. Lawless, 18, agreed to testify against two men who prosecutors say set up the shooting that killed 19-year-old Alisha Quillen last July. The two men were sentenced to eight years in prison while Lawless got six months. He had only 20 days left to serve.

SSDP gets press

Do a Google News search for "sensible drug" to have a looksee at all the great press Students for Sensible Drug Policy has been able to foster recently.

In just the past few weeks, we've been in newspapers from coast to coast, including USA Today, the Des Moines Register, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Indianapolis Star, the Detroit Free Press, New Hampshire's Union Leader, and Slate.com.

If you appreciate the anti-Drug War work SSDP is doing on behalf of students nationwide, please make a donation to SSDP today.

Drug warrior senator says fire the Drug Czar

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, has called on President Bush to fire Drug Czar John Walters.

In a conference call with Iowa reporters, Grassley said: "I think the president ought to fire the drug czar." He said that he wrote Walters calling for more action on meth and the response he received was "basically, bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo."

Walters and the Office of National Drug Control Policy continue to place much more emphasis on fighting marijuana use, said Grassley.

While cracking down on meth will only cause more problems and unintended black market collateral damage, it's nice to see a hardcore drug warrior finally realizing that this administration's focus on marijuana is nothing but a distraction and an easy sound bite.

Something's rotten in the State of South Carolina

America should send its drug users overseas to be imprisoned in foreign countries.

Well, that's what Representative G. Ralph Davenport, Jr., of Boiling Springs, SC thinks. You'll recall that he's the same guy who wants to use the threat of arrest to prevent people from using dildos.

Section 24-3-20(A) of the 1976 Code, as last amended by Act 406 of 1996, is further amended by adding at the end:

"Notwithstanding another provision of law, the department may enter into agreements with foreign countries for the confinement of inmates convicted of drug related offenses or offenses related to the sexual abuse of children."

I'm not sure if it's more offensive that Rep. Davenport wants to pay foreign governments with histories of human rights abuses to take America's drug users and do whatever they want to them, or that he equates drug users with child molesters. And a la the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty, he wants to let murderers and other rapists off the hook while punishing drug users as much as he can.

One wonders what the good people of South Carolina's 37th House district think of their representative's work in the capital lately.

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The sky is falling

Baylen over at To The People brings us the tragic story of two children accidentally killed by U.S. operatives in Afghanistan on an anti-drug mission. The kids were inside of some tents that the plane slammed into after the pilots overshot the runway.

Ironically, if the crash had occurred a few minutes earlier, the narcs would have also taken out some opium growers. Instead, they just killed the little kids, as well as two Ukranian crew members on board the plane.

The casualty count could have been higher if the settlement's men had not left earlier to work at a farm picking opium poppies.

The full story is here.

EXTRA EXTRA: The Drug War has failed!

A few snippits from three great articles exposing different aspects of the failed War on Drugs:

Rocky Mountain News exposes the FDA's politicized, hypocritical statement regarding medical marijuana:

"They're terribly afraid of such research, because any serious scientific study of the subject is going to reveal how little basis there is for their claims. Continuing to demonize marijuana is the key to the drug war, and the drug war pays the salaries of a lot of people." [MPP's Bruce Mirken]

Advertising Age exposes the failure of the Drug Czar's propaganda campaign:

"The ads are very silly and act more as a comic relief than to curb drug use. I actually think the ads make kids aware of drugs that they might not have been exposed to and I think they pique their curiosity."

[snip]

"...if ever a campaign cried out for a smart, targeted, non-broadcast approach-instead of dumb messages dropped with 'media weight'-this is it,"

And finally, the University of Illinois student newspaper, the Daily Illini, University of Connecticut student newspaper, the Daily Campus, presents a compelling argument for the need to end marijuana prohibition:

The legalization of marijuana is by no means a new or shocking concept. What does continue to be shocking, however, is our government's unwillingness to re-evaluate its drug policies and recognize the inefficiency and unfairness of imposing such unreasonable punishments. Decriminalization of the drug state by state is a start but it should lead to legalization.

Our society and government have wasted enough resources. It is time to solve this "drug problem" and focus on more important priorities.

Legislating boredom

[Note: The picture below may be considered inappropriate. You may wish to avoid scrolling down if you are at school, in the workplace, or if you are South Carolina state Rep, Ralphy Davenport.]

Very soon, big drug cartels may start adding a few new products to their shipments to South Carolina.

A new blend of heroin perhaps? Maybe a cleaner methamphetamine? Nope...

Dildos, vibrators, and butt-plugs.

Via Boing Boing:

Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys. But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.

The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses.

Get ready for Sex Toy Prohibition, kiddos. It's gonna be one heckuva public policy.

I just have to chuckle at the thought of S.W.A.T. teams kicking down the doors of private businesses and rummaging through merchandise to find "devices used primarily for sexual stimulation."

"Officer Smith, does this Pez dispenser look like a sex toy to you?"

"Hmm... check to see what the manual from the Office of National Dildo Control Policy has to say."

"It's rather ambiguous. It is pink and plastic and about the size of *ahem* well, you know. But it also dispenses small tart candies."

"Hrm. Better bring it into the lab for testing."

All jokes aside, the ridiculous lengths to which many of our elected officials are going in order to push their own brand of morality are getting quite scary. "Life, liberty..." and what was that last one, Mr. Jefferson?If the puritans of the South Carolina legislature are successful in criminalizing the pursuit of kinkyness, drug prohibition may give us some warning signs of what to expect. Lucrative black markets for pleasure gadgets will spring up overnight, putting armed salesmen on every urban corner. Sexually experimental youngsters will roam the streets looking for a fix, eventually coming across their first "gateway dildo" to harder plastics. Prisons will be clogged with people whose only crime was trying to relax with a hot bath, some candles, and 'Johnny Depp Junior' after a long day at work. Worst of all, shady opportunists will fashion vibrators out of cheap household appliances, maiming or killing unfortunate masturbators with electrical malfunctions.

Undoubtedly, some concerned citizens will stand up to Sex Toy Prohibition and fight to restore a safe, regulated market for the products. They will be ruthlessly pigeonholed as perverts and sexual deviants, but will continue their fight for a more sensible society. The student movement, of course, will be unstoppable.

Update 4/24:

Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama have already outlawed the sale of sex toys. Initially, I really didn't think the South Carolina proposal had any legs... but it looks like the prudish precedent has already been set.

Thanks for the heads up, Hammer of Truth.

[Apologies to Elian Gonzalez for the photograph.]

Protect kids from rigorous scientific scrutiny!

Even enlightened readers of the New York Times, reading coverage of the FDA's bunk and untimely report that marijuana has no medical benefits whatsoever, are subject to propaganda attempts. Reading online coverage from the two days following pot enthusiasts' holiday, I was bombarded by flashy pop-ups enticing me to pick the attractive teen who is most susceptible to drugs (who would have known? they are all "high-risk.") Right above the simple and clever editorial is a banner with bright green pot leaves claiming that if I click it I will get the "straight facts on marijuana." For my kids, that is, and from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Attempts at manipulation of the real issue aside, the New York Times has run three pieces on the FDA report in the past two days. A spokeswoman for the FDA seems to mistake "legalization efforts" with "scientific research" when she says, "state initiatives that legalize marijuana use are inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the F.D.A. approval process.' It sure takes some Ministry of Truth-sized balls to claim that the FDA values "rigorous scientific scrutiny."


Today's editoral is eloquntly and simply written:

Ordinarily, when the F.D.A. addresses a thorny issue, it convenes a panel of experts who wade through the latest evidence and then render an opinion as to whether a substance is safe and effective to use. This time the agency simply issued a skimpy one-page statement asserting that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of marijuana.

That seems disingenuous. The government is actively discouraging relevant research, according to scientists quoted by Gardiner Harris in yesterday's Times. It's obviously easier and safer to issue a brief, dismissive statement than to back research that might undermine the administration's inflexible opposition to the medical use of marijuana.

...especially when you're still trying to convince parents that marijuana is the gravest danger to their child's development. The government may try to miseducate a malleable youth population, but when even articles in the New York Times have to be overshadowed by flashy propoganda, the "dumbing down" is more than a little insulting.

How is your state hurt by the Aid Elimination Penalty?

Students for Sensible Drug Policy's Freedom of Information Act dispute with the U.S. Department of Education has finally paid off. Once we sued them over the ridiculous $4,000 fee they wanted to charge us, the government quickly gave up and handed over numbers on how many students in every state have lost financial aid due to drug convictions.

Read SSDP's state-by-state report to find out how the Higher Education Act (HEA) Aid Elimination Penalty is impacting your state.

If you want to receive infrequent news updates and important action alerts from SSDP, please enter your e-mail address below.

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USA Today printed an article about SSDP's state-by-state report on page A3 this morning. SSDP and ACLU are quoted.

"I think it's important that all members (of Congress) know exactly how many of their constituents' lives have been ruined by this policy," says Tom Angell, campaigns director for Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the constitutionality of the law in federal court. "This is the only offense for which one can be denied financial aid," says attorney Adam Wolf of the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project based in Santa Cruz, Calif.

If you can afford it, please make a donation to SSDP's efforts on behalf of students.